Find Your Letter in the Torah

The Zohar states that there are 600,000 letters in the Sefer Torah which correspond to the 600,000 Jews. (In actuality, there are 304,805 letters. Many explanations are offered how to get to 600,000 including counting different vowel pronunciations or counting the white space around each letter) The Megaleh Amukos, Rav Nosson Nota Spira (Va’eschanan #186:1) writes that the soul of every Jew stems from one of the 600,000 letters in the Torah. The name “ישראל” itself can be viewed as an acronym for the words, “יש ששים רבוא אותיות לתורה.” There is a letter in the Torah for each of our names.

While some letters in the Torah are written larger than others, there is no letter that is more significant than any other letter. If any letter is missing or incomplete, the entire Torah is invalid to use. The Jewish nation is one Torah scroll. Everybody counts. Every individual—big or small, scholar or unlearned—is a letter. We are all one, interdependent and equally important.

The Me’or Einayim (Emor), Rav Menachem Nochum of Chernobyl writes that Simchas Torah is the day on which each of us reconnects to Torah in a way that can only happen after all the other holidays of Tishrei are finished. He says that since there are 600,000 letters in the Torah and there were 600,000 Jews who received Torah at Mount Sinai, we conclude that each Jewish soul has a spiritual connection to one of the Torah’s letters. Simchas Torah is the day on which each of us reconnects with our special letter. We can only do this after we have been purified by the teshuva of the Yamim Noraim and unified together by sitting in the Sukkah. On this day, each of us merits to receive an aliyah and come up to the Torah to meet the letter that sings to our souls, the letter that is our name.

A name highlights the essence of an individual. Rav Shimshon Refael Hirsch suggests that the word for name “shem,” can also be vowelized “sham,” there. A name depicts where a person is in life.

Though the Shulchan Aruch records that the proper thing to do during Hagbah, when the Torah is lifted, is to bow, the more prevalent custom is to point. The Arizal wouldn’t just point from a distance, but he would get close to the Torah during Hagbah so that he could see the actual letters. The Mishna Berura (134:11) quotes this and says עי”ז נמשך אור גדול על האדםthis practice draws down a great light upon a person.

The Ben Ish Chai, R. Yosef Chaim of Baghdad, and the Kaf Ha’Chaim go even further, writing that during Hagbah a person should look for a word in the Torah that begins with the first letter of his own name. Each time the Torah is read, we are to remember that we have a place, a letter, the Torah speaks to our name, to each of us, we have a mission and a purpose, we have a piece and a part of Torah.

Immediately after instructing Avraham to leave the land of his ancestors and journey to Eretz Yisrael, Hashem promises:

וְאֶֽעֶשְׂךָ֙ לְג֣וֹי גָּד֔וֹל וַאֲבָ֣רֶכְךָ֔ וַאֲגַדְּלָ֖ה שְׁמֶ֑ךָ וֶהְיֵ֖ה בְּרָכָֽה׃

I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you; I will make your name great, And you shall be a blessing.

The simple understanding of the second promise is Hashem will make Avraham’s name great among the nations of the world, but the Bnei Yissaschar (Agra De’Kala) says it means Hashem promises to make Avraham believe in the greatness of his name, in his potential and possibility, in his unique mission for this world.

Rabbi Levi Welton, a rabbi from New York, and his wife were visiting their family in Sacramento, California. On Shabbos, they went to the local Chabad for davening and met another out-of-town family celebrating a Bat Mitzvah. At the Kiddush, Rabbi Welton struck up a conversation with the father of the Bat Mitzvah girl and discovered that the man, named “Chaim,” was from Mexico City and had converted to Judaism many years ago.

“Why did you pick Chaim as your Hebrew name?” The Rabbi asked. The man told Rabbi Welton the following story:

“Towards the start of my spiritual journey, I once spent a Friday night at a synagogue in Westchester, New York. After Lecha Dodi, we started dancing and I noticed that the elderly man I was holding hands with had numbers tattooed on his arm. Suddenly, I remembered something a rabbi once said about Holocaust survivors: ‘A Holocaust survivor who doesn’t believe in God is a normal person. A Holocaust survivor who does is an angel.’

I felt overwhelmed to be dancing with an angel and after davening I asked the man his name. The old man smiled and said, ‘Chaim.’ Chaim survived Buchenwald, was in the Israeli Air Force, and then immigrated to America. At that moment, I decided that when the time came for me to convert, I would call myself Chaim. Years passed and I never saw Chaim again, but I’ll never forget him because we share the same name.”

After listening attentively, Rabbi Welton asked: “By any chance, would the man’s name have been Chaim Grossman?” The father of the Bat Mitzvah girl was shocked. “How do you know that?” he asked. Rabbi Welton explained that he was a shul rabbi in Westchester, and he had a congregant who survived Buchenwald, served in the Israeli Air Force, and then immigrated to America. Chaim Grossman was his congregant.

The man began to cry. Rabbi Welton promised that he would send regards, but the father had another request. So after Shabbos, they took a picture together to convey his love to his namesake, “Chaim.”

The next Shabbos, Rabbi Welton asked Chaim Grossman to sit in the center of the Shul for the derasha. The parsha that week was Shemos which lists the names of B’nei Yisrael. Rabbi Welton related that 3,000 miles away there lived a man named Chaim who carried Chaim Grossman’s name and who was raising his family in an observant, Torah home.

The rabbi then took out the photo, printed and framed, and handed it to Chaim. Chaim stood up and raised his numbered arm to receive the photo of his “Godson”. With tears streaming down his cheeks, Chaim proclaimed “Baruch Hashem, Shehechiyanu, V’kiyamu, V’higiyanu V’higiyanu Lazman Hazeh!”

Chaim Grossman had never been blessed with children. But now he had a proud Jew halfway around the world who carried his name and who would pass it on to future generations.

Simchas Torah is not just a technical occasion that we finish and roll the Torah to start again. It is a day we unroll ourselves to find our place in the masorah of Torah, to reconnect to our eternal heritage. We do this not as a burden but as a gift. With great joy we embrace our life purpose, our unique mission. So, during Hagbah, get close to the Torah and look for a word that begins with the letter of your name. Find your name and find your place in Torah.

Shake Yourself

A renowned Rabbi once did a favor for the Gerrer Rebbe, the Lev Simcha, which the Rebbe remembered for many years. Each year, on Erev Rosh Hashana, the Rebbe would call the man to check in on him and to wish him a kesiva v’chasima tova.

One year, the Rabbi asked the Rebbe if he could have the honor of visiting on Chol HaMoed Sukkos. The Rebbe was more than happy to agree and they set up a time. Chol HaMoed came and the Rabbi was welcomed into the Rebbe’s sukka where they began a joyous discussion of Divrei Torah about Sukkos.

The Rebbe, in his classic style, pointed out something amazing about the way we perform the mitzvah of ד׳ מינים. He said, “Did you notice that the number of times we shake the Arba Minim equals the gematria of the two sheimos, the two names of Hashem?” The Rabbi, who was a very quick thinker, remarked, “Rebbe, I’m sorry but I don’t think the math works out. We shake five times all together. Once when we make the ברכה, twice when we say הודו, and twice when we say אנא. Each time there are 18 total waves or shakes, 3 in each of the 6 directions. That makes the sum total 90, whereas the gematria of the two names of Hashem is 91.” [The four-letter name of Hashem is written with letters that add up to 26 and pronounced with letters that add up to 65.]

The Lev Simcha smiled. “True, but you forgot to include one more shake, perhaps the most important one.” The Rabbi was confused, which of the נענועים did he leave out? The Rebbe explained, “A yid must also give himself a shake, we shake the lulav and we shake up our lives.”

We are familiar with many of the laws of לולב and אתרוג but these laws also have a deeper meaning, a פנימיות to them. We are meant to not only take and shake the לולב and אתרוג externally but to have it impact us internally as well. The Zohar tells us that the word לולב comes from a combination of the world “לו” (to him) and “לב” (heart), meaning our hearts must be our own, in our personal jurisdiction, and under our control. Our hearts should not be swayed by peer pressure or the temptation to imitate the hearts of others.

When the Torah commands the mitzvah of לולב it says, ולקחתם לכם, take for yourself. Chazal learn from here that we must own our own לולב the first day that we take it. We must take personal ownership over our Avodas Hashem and over our lives, and not serve Hashem by comparing, competing, or copying those around us.

This insight can provide deeper understandings behind some fundamental Halachos of lulav. A לולב הגזול is disqualified because we cannot steal or copy others, we need to find our own voice, fulfill our own unique mission in this world. A לולב היבש is pasul, a dried out לולב is invalid, because it lacks vitality, חיות. It is simply going through motions bereft of vitality. The לולב of an אשרה of עבודה זרה is invalid. Our heart cannot be led astray, can’t be influenced from foreign sources, ideals and ideas. It must be genuine, authentic, and true.

The לולב must be shaken דרך גידולו , in the way that it grew, pointing upwards. Our heart was born to strive upwards, we are positioned to grow, to stretch and to actualize our spiritual potential.

The לולב requires נענועים. When shake in every direction; when we interact with those all around us, we cannot simply be an imitation, a copy of someone else. לולב, לו לב, we have to take our unique energy, talents, skills and apply them in every direction, spread them all around us.

The Gemara in Sukka (53a) teaches:

תַּנְיָא: אָמְרוּ עָלָיו עַל הִלֵּל הַזָּקֵן כְּשֶׁהָיָה שָׂמֵחַ בְּשִׂמְחַת בֵּית הַשּׁוֹאֵבָה, אָמַר כֵּן: אִם אֲנִי כָּאן — הַכֹּל כָּאן, וְאִם אֵינִי כָּאן — מִי כָּאן

They said about Hillel that when he was rejoicing at the Simchas Beis Ha’Shoeiva he said this: If I am here, everyone is here; and if I am not here, who is here?

Could Hillel be so arrogant, so self-centered to make such a pompous and bombastic statement about himself? The Talmud is replete with examples of Hillel’s paradigmatic humility. What was Hillel actually saying?

The Kotzker Rebbe famously said: “If I am I because I am I, and you are you because you are you, then I am I and you are you. But if I am I because you are you and you are you because I am I, then I am not I and you are not you.”

Knowing who you are requires an awareness and realistic measure of your capabilities. Without self-understanding, you may rely on others to determine your identity and potential. Am I one person at work, another person at shul, another at home, and someone entirely different when I’m on vacation? If I am only defined by others or by the context in which I find myself then I have no true identity of my own. The Kotzker Rebbe was teaching that identity is built from within.

Perhaps Hillel was echoing the message of the Kotzker: If I am here, the true me, the real me, the genuine and authentic me, if each of us are true to ourselves and our missions, הכל כאן, we are all really here. But if we are just imitating one another, if we are just blending together and copying each other, nobody is actually here. Hillel’s humility didn’t contradict his self-awareness.

Rav Dessler explains that this is the meaning of another famous statement by Hillel, אִם אֵין אֲנִי לִי, מִי לִי If I am not for me, who will be for me? If I am just a copy, an imitation of others, who will represent and express the real me?

According to the Zohar we take the לולב and we remember לו לב, be yourself, be true to your heart, don’t lose sight of the unique gifts Hashem has entrusted you with and the mission that only you can fulfill. So you don’t have the same job, spouse, children, talents, skills or opportunities as others you know. Your job is not to be them, it is to be you. To know your heart and be true to it, to shake your lulav and shake yourself up until the real you comes out.

Oscar Wilde put it well when he said: “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”

Perhaps this is why Sukkos specifically is זמן שמחתנו. The biggest source of happiness is being true to ourselves, feeling genuine and authentic.

Several years ago, a group was travelling through Iceland on a tour bus and stopped near a volcanic canyon in the southern highlands. Soon, there was word of a missing passenger. A search and rescue operation was initiated involving 50 people on foot and in vehicles. As the night wore on in Iceland’s Eldgja Canyon, a description of the missing person was offered – Asian female in dark clothing and speaks English well. It was close to 3:00 a.m. and the Coast Guard readied a helicopter to help find a missing woman. But the search was called off when it became clear the missing woman was actually part of the search party. She had left to change her clothes. When she came back, her party didn’t recognize her and started the search. It turns out that all night the woman was searching… for herself.

This Sukkos, let’s not only shake the physical לולב, let’s shake ourselves us and go searching for our לו לב, who we are and the unique energy we can wave in every direction

Regrets or No Regrets?

“No regrets” is a popular motto, a badge of honor, and for some, a way of life. It is even a popular tattoo, a slogan people literally engrave on their skin. Despite its appeal, it turns out living the “no regrets” life isn’t really possible; we are actually hard-wired to experience regrets and that is a good thing. You see, regret doesn’t just make us human, it can also make us better. Brene Brown, the popular professor and author, puts it well: “No regrets’ doesn’t mean living with courage, it means living without reflection.”

A few years ago, a group of researchers put up a chalkboard on a New York City street and asked random passersby to write down their biggest regrets. The respondants were from different walks of life, but their regrets all had one alarming thing in common: the word “Not.” They were primarily about chances not taken, about words not spoken, about dreams never pursued. By the end of the day the chalkboard was completely filled with tales of regret.

We aren’t in New York City and there is no chalkboard here, but make no mistake, we are here today on Yom Kippur to express our regret, what we wish we could have done differently, mistakes we made, things we want to retract.

Rabbeinu Yonah writes in Shaarei Teshuva:

עיקרי התשובה: העיקר הראשון – החרטה. יבין לבבו כי רע ומר עזבו את ה’

The first primary component of the repentence process is regret. One must recognize in his heart the sinfulness and bitterness of departing from Hashem.

What is charata and what role does it have in teshuva? Are we meant to beat ourselves up, knock ourselves down, be racked and riddled with shame and guilt, or does charata serve a different purpose?

Last year, Daniel Pink published a book called “The Power of Regret” in which he writes: “The conclusion from both the science and the survey is clear: Regret is not dangerous or abnormal. It is healthy and universal, an integral part of being human. Equally important, regret is valuable. It clarifies. It instructs. Done right, it needn’t drag us down; it can lift us up.”

Pink found that to make our regrets work for us, we must respond systematically by neither avoiding them nor perseverating over them. He says there are three critical steps that corelate with what the Torah has already taught:

1. Reframe your regret. Does what you regret deserve kindness or contempt? Does the regret represent a moment in your life, or does it define your life? We ask Hashem yitamu chataim, eliminate mistakes, but not chotim, those who make them. Even as we spend today confronting what we have done wrong, it is critical that we recognize they need not define us.

2. Disclose your experience and regret – Pink argues that using language, whether written or spoken, forces us to organize and integrate our thoughts. Instead of those unpleasant emotions fluttering around uncontrollably, language helps us analyze them, limit them, learn and ultimately grow from them. The Rambam sees vidui, verbal confession, acknowledging mistakes and shortcomings, as an indispensable, perhaps the most critical, element of teshuva.

The Alter Rebbe connects the word charatah with charitah, engraving. We have to admit what we regret so that we can engrave what we learned and ensure we don’t repeat it. We cannot correct and repair ourselves without articulating our regrets. Only when we disclose it, confront it, and analyze it can we learn from it and move on from it.

3. Extract a lesson. – Lastly, Pink says don’t marinate, perseverate or get stuck. The subtitle of the book is, “How looking backward moves us forward.” The Rambam says the step in teshuva after charata is kabbalah al ha’asid, extracting a lesson for the future, giving the regret meaning by turning it into positive action. Like the Alter Rebbe, the Alexander Rebbe links charata, regret, to charita, engraving, as in the pasuk in Yeshaya (8:1) b’cheret enosh, man engraved. Charata is an invasive process where we scrape away our most detestable and despicable traits until they are gone.

For the Alexander Rebbe, charata, regret, is not about the past, it is about knowing what to purge and cleanse and repair in the present. We can’t undo what we regret but we can learn and grow from it by changing our behavior now.

In his formula for return and repair, the Rambam delineates the importance of regret, only he uses a different term.

וּמַה הִיא הַתְּשׁוּבָה. הוּא שֶׁיַּעֲזֹב הַחוֹטֵא חֶטְאוֹ וִיסִירוֹ מִמַּחֲשַׁבְתּוֹ וְיִגְמֹר בְּלִבּוֹ שֶׁלֹּא יַעֲשֵׂהוּ עוֹד …וְכֵן יִתְנַחֵם עַל שֶׁעָבַר …וְיָעִיד עָלָיו יוֹדֵעַ תַּעֲלוּמוֹת שֶׁלֹּא יָשׁוּב לְזֶה הַחֵטְא לְעוֹלָם …וְצָרִיךְ לְהִתְוַדּוֹת בִּשְׂפָתָיו וְלוֹמַר עִנְיָנוֹת אֵלּוּ שֶׁגָּמַר בְּלִבּוֹ:

The word “ִתְנַחֵם” is often translated as “regret”, but it shares the same shoresh as the word for “console”. When Hashem is saddened by the behavior of humanity after creating the world the Torah says וַיִּנָּחֶם ה’ כִּי עָשָׂה אֶת הָאָדָם בָּאָרֶץ. When Hashem is worried we will regret leaving Egypt, he took us a circuoutous route, כִּ֣י ׀ אָמַ֣ר אֱלֹהִ֗ים פֶּֽן־יִנָּחֵ֥ם הָעָ֛ם בִּרְאֹתָ֥ם מִלְחָמָ֖ה וְשָׁ֥בוּ מִצְרָֽיְמָה׃

Hashem is perfect, infinite, and omnipresent. How is it possible for Him to have “regret?” It must be נָחָם doesn’t mean regret in the way we clasically think of it, but it means to pivot, to redirect. When performing nichum aveilim we aren’t assisting the mourners in regret, we are encouraging them to pivot and redirect their lives, now without their loved one. In the context of Teshuva, מִתְנַחֵם isn’t merely recalling the past and feeling bad and sad about it, but rather it is a process wherby we pivot from those decisions, actions, or feelings and redirect our priorities, focus, and choices.

In the process of teshuva, regret isn’t merely an emotion, it is a dynamic process whereby we replace the remorse-worthy act with an active commitment to “remove the mark” of that mistake currently embedded within us.

It was 2005. At 53-years of age, Eugene O’Kelly was full of life. As the chairman and CEO of KPMG, one of the largest U.S. accounting firms, O’Kelly was the consummate global jet-setter. His successful career brought him into the presence of Warren Buffet and other business giants. Gene spent days, nights, and weekends planning the firm’s continued success. He described himself as feeling, “vigorous, indefatigable, and … near immortal.”

In the spring of 2005, Eugene’s wife, Corinne, noticed that the right side of her husband’s face was sagging. He went to see a neurologist and within a week, Gene was diagnosed with inoperable, late-stage brain cancer. He was given three months to live. With this sudden and shocking diagnosis, Gene had to quickly determine how he would spend his remaining 100 days on earth. He made an immediate decision to make every minute of his life count.

Gene wrote that he wanted “every calculated step to be filled with truth of purpose.” Gene struggled to live in the moment as he began a process he called “unwinding.” Bidding farewell to friends and loved ones not only spurred Gene to recall happy memories but kept his “focus on life, not death.” They guaranteed that he was “almost always thinking about what mattered.”

For those considering taking the time someday to plan their final weeks and months, Gene had three words of advice: “Move it up!”

The gemara in Shabbos (153a) says:

רַבִּי אֱלִיעֶזֶר אוֹמֵר: שׁוּב יוֹם אֶחָד לִפְנֵי מִיתָתֶךָ. שָׁאֲלוּ תַּלְמִידָיו אֶת רַבִּי אֱלִיעֶזֶר: וְכִי אָדָם יוֹדֵעַ אֵיזֶהוּ יוֹם יָמוּת? אָמַר לָהֶן: וְכׇל שֶׁכֵּן, יָשׁוּב הַיּוֹם, שֶׁמָּא יָמוּת לְמָחָר, וְנִמְצָא כׇּל יָמָיו בִּתְשׁוּבָה.

Rebbe Eliezer says “Repent one day before you die.” His students asked him: “But does a person know which day he will die?” He responded: “Therefore he must certainly repent today, for maybe he will die tomorrow – in this manner all his days are spent in repentence.”

Don’t wait to unwind your life – move it up! Tell friends who have enriched your life, thank you. Ask those whom you have hurt or disappointed for forgiveness. Identify your regret, reframe it, extract a lesson, and make a correction by redirecting yourself.

Gene did one more thing in those last three months — he wrote a book called “Chasing Daylight.” It’s a moving and humbling narrative describing Gene’s search for a better way to die. He opens the book by saying, “I was blessed. I was told I had three months to live.” He writes that he worked hard so he could spend retirement with his wife — a goal that suddenly vanished with his diagnosis.

Chazal tell us that on this sacred day, Sifrei Chaim and Sifrei Meisim, the book of life and the book of death, are open. We typically think of Hashem sitting before these great ledgers and determining where to put our name. However, the Koshoglover, Rav Aryeh Zvi Frimer, writes in his Eretz Tzvi that Hashem isn’t the only author in these books. On this special day, we decide what we want to write into the book of death, things that we want to let go of, destroy, put behind us. And we decide what to write in the sefer ha’chaim, what we want to give life to, learn from, grow from and build a future from.

Regrets guide us in this editorial process as we choose the relationships, habits, and experiences that need unwinding and those that we need to lean into in order to lead a meaningful life. Regret is not a time machine, we can’t undo the person, parent or spouse we were, but we can still determine the person we will have yet to be.

Gene spent many precious hours writing his book fully cognizant of his fundamental limitation — he would be unable to write the final chapter. In finishing the book that her husband began, Gene’s wife, Corrine, reflected on how Gene was so concerned about how to say goodbye to their teenage daughter: “He worked so hard to find the perfect trip or gesture or gift for her to have the rest of her life… but how is that ever possible? How do you unwind a relationship with your child who is only 14?”

In his final days, Gene had one profound regret: “Had I known then what I knew now, almost certainly I would have been more creative in figuring out a way to live a more balanced life, to spend more time with my family.”

At the end of the experiement in Manhattan, the researchers wiped the chalkboard clean and wrote “Clean slate” across it. Today, we aren’t writing regrets on a chalkboard but as we feel charata, we can practice charita – engraving our regrets on our hearts as we klop al cheit shechatanu lefanecha. If we properly edit our books of death and of life and pivot accordingly, at the end of today, we, too, get a clean slate, a fresh start, as Hashem promises us: Salachti Kidvorecho.

Mission Possible

The story is told that Rav Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev once summoned all of the Jews to assemble in the town square the next day because he had an announcement of the greatest importance to make. He ordered that the merchants close their shops, all nursing mothers were to bring their infants, and that everyone, with no exceptions, was to be there to hear the announcement. The people wondered what the announcement could be. Was a pogrom imminent or a new tax? Was the Rebbe going to leave? Or was he perhaps seriously ill? Did he know the time when the Moshiach would come and was he going to reveal it? The entire community was assembled the next day with no exceptions, and everyone waited with baited breath to hear what the Rabbi would announce.

Precisely at twelve the Rebbe rose and said: “I, Levi Yitzhak, son of Sarah, have gathered you here today in order to tell you that there is a Ribono Shel Olam, there is a God in the world!” That was it? Yes, that was the important announcement. Something so basic and yet so easily and regularly forgotten.

The holiday we call Rosh Hashana is never called that in Chumash. In Parshas Emor, the Torah refers to Rosh Hashana as zichron teruah and we therefore refer to it (for example, in our davening kiddush, and bentching) as Yom HaZikaron. The Day of Remembrance. What does memory have to do with the New Year? The simple understanding is that on this Day of Judgement, Hashem invokes the memory of all we have done, for good and for bad. We describe Hashem as zocheir kol ha’nishkachos, He remembers all that is forgotten; indeed, one of the central components of our Mussaf, Zichronos, is dedicated to this idea.

But perhaps there is a deeper meaning to the aspect of zechirah and zikaron on Rosh Hashana and in the Teshuva process.

Zichron teruah, yom ha’zikaron. What Teruah is the Torah commanding us to remember?

וַיְהִי בַיוֹם הַשְלִישִי בִהְיֹּת הַבֹּקֶר, וַיְהִי קֹּלֹת וּבְרָקִים וְעָנָן כָבֵד עַל-הָהָר, וְקֹּל שֹּפָר, חָזָק מְאֹד; וַיֶחֱרַד כָל-הָעָם, אֲשֶר בַמַחֲנֶה… וַיְהִי קוֹל הַשֹּׁפָר, הוֹלֵךְ וְחָזֵק מְאֹד

It came to pass on the third day when it was morning, that there were thunder claps and lightning flashes, and a thick cloud was upon the mountain, and a very powerful blast of a shofar…The sound of the shofar grew increasingly stronger; Moshe would speak and God would answer him with a voice.

Rosh Hashana is a day of remembering but it isn’t Hashem who is remembering us, it is a day for us to remember Him. For us to remember the day that we heard the unadulterated voice of Hashem at Har Sinai. Hashem spoke to us then through the sound of a shofar and He speaks to us again through the sound of the same shofar, an echo reverberating from that great day of revelation, a day when we received our mission from headquarters. A mission to be a Mamleches Kohanim v’Goy Kadosh. And this mission is more important now than ever.

On Rosh Hashana, we blow the shofar to coronate Hashem as our King and proclaim that we are His loyal subjects. But we need to connect with the shofar on a personal level as well. The Rambam (Hilchos Teshuva Perek 3) famously states:

אַף עַל פִּי שֶׁתְּקִיעַת שׁוֹפָר בְּרֹאשׁ הַשָּׁנָה גְּזֵרַת הַכָּתוּב רֶמֶז יֵשׁ בּוֹ כְּלוֹמַר עוּרוּ יְשֵׁנִים מִשְּׁנַתְכֶם וְנִרְדָּמִים הָקִיצוּ מִתַּרְדֵּמַתְכֶם וְחַפְּשׂוּ בְּמַעֲשֵׂיכֶם וְחִזְרוּ בִּתְשׁוּבָה וְזִכְרוּ בּוֹרַאֲכֶם

Even though the sounding of the shofar on Rosh Hashana is a decree, it contains an allusion. It is as if [the shofar’s call] is saying: Wake up you sleepy ones from your sleep and you who slumber, arise. Inspect your deeds, repent, remember your Creator.

Many know the beginning of the Rambam that the Shofar wakes us up, but to what? The Rambam continues, it wakes us up to remember something, something that we can easily forget, someone we can easily be lulled to sleep about. In our day-to-day slumber of life, we can forget perhaps the most important thing of all, that we have a Creator.

The Rambam uses this language in describing teshuva gemura, complete teshuva too (Hilchos Teshuva 2:1):

אֵי זוֹ הִיא תְּשׁוּבָה גְּמוּרָה. זֶה שֶׁבָּא לְיָדוֹ דָּבָר שֶׁעָבַר בּוֹ וְאֶפְשָׁר בְּיָדוֹ לַעֲשׂוֹתוֹ… וּפָרַשׁ וְלֹא עָבַר זֶהוּ בַּעַל תְּשׁוּבָה גְּמוּרָה. הוּא שֶׁשְּׁלֹמֹה אָמַר (קהלת יב א) “וּזְכֹר אֶת בּוֹרְאֶיךָ בִּימֵי בְּחוּרֹתֶיךָ”.

Who has reached complete Teshuvah? A person who confronts the same situation in which he sinned when he has the potential to commit…nevertheless, he abstained and did not transgress. This is a complete Baal-Teshuvah. This was implied by King Solomon in his statement “Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the bad days come and the years draw near when you will say: ‘I have no desire for them.’”

The Rambam quotes a pasuk to prove tshuva gemura and what is it? “Remember Hakadosh Baruch Hu, remember there is a Ribono Shel Olam.” Rosh Hashana ultimately is really as simple as that, it is a day of going back to the basics and making the main thing the main thing: that there is a Creator, He brought us into this world for a reason and to make a difference. When we remember Him, we live a mission-driven life, we ask how we can serve Him. When we forget Him, we get confused, we show poor judgment, and we make mistakes.

To be clear, we daven for ourselves today, for our families’ health, wellbeing, livelihood and more. There is nothing wrong with that, and in fact, that is our responsibility. But why are those things important? What is our argument to have them? Because we remember there is a Ribono Shel Olam, because we want to fulfill His vision and mission for us, because we think we can be most efficient and productive, we can accomplish the most for Him and His vision if we have them.

Sometimes it feels like momentum is carrying us. We continue to keep Shabbos, we daven daily, we pay the tuition and buy the expensive Kosher food. We are running on a religious hamster wheel, but why, why are we doing those things? Do we remember there is a Ribono Shel Olam? Are we in a relationship and ongoing conversation with Him? Do we talk to Him and do we interpret events in our lives as His talking to us? Do we talk to our children and grandchildren about Him, sharing when we see Him in our lives, modeling for them when we lean on Him and turn to Him?

Mark Twain once said, “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” Rosh Hashana is the birthday of man, and we pause annually at this critical juncture to ask and to try to provide the answer to why.

Rosh Hashana is Yom Hazikaron, it is the day we give a big klop, not on the bimah but on our hearts, and like R’ Levi Yitzchak, we announce, there is a Ribono Shel Olam, there is a Creator, we are here to serve at the pleasure of the King.

In February 2008, Esquire Magazine published an article entitled: “10 Who Tasted Greatness (and Choked on It).” The column mockingly counted down “the people who nearly reached the Heavens only to have hubris or plain bad luck trigger an unexpected return to the muck.”

Number 10 on the list was Thomas E. Dewey – The “Almost President” who is most remembered for the Chicago Daily Tribune headline that published “Dewey Defeats Truman” before the full election returns were in. Others on the list included athletes who came close to historic achievements and music groups that just missed their moment. Who might you ask is number 1 on the list? None other than Steven Hill, who was described by a legendary theater instructor as “one of the finest actors America has ever produced.” Hill, born Shlomo Krakovsky, was one of only 50 actors to be accepted to the newly created Actors Studio in 1947, landed his first Broadway role in 1948 and for the next two decades Hill was busy in theater, motion pictures and the so-called “Golden Age” of live TV drama. As a contemporary of his, another well-known actor put it, “When I first became an actor, there were two young actors in New York: Marlon Brando and Steven Hill. A lot of people said that Steven would have been ‘the one,’ not Marlon.”

Yet, despite being well on the way to success on Broadway and in Hollywood, Steven was still looking for something more in life. Appearing as Sigmund Freud in the play A Far Country in 1961 had a profound effect on Hill. In one scene, a patient screams at Freud, “You are a Jew?!” Freud would answer, “Yes.” Over time, Hill found that exchange echoing in his ears for hours after every performance. “Yes,” he would say to himself, “Yes, I am a Jew.” He described, “I slowly became aware that there was something more profound going on in the world than just plays and movies and TV shows. I was provoked to explore my religion.”

In another interview, Hill said: “I used to ask myself, ‘Was I born just to memorize lines?’ I knew there had to be more to life than that. I was searching—trying to find the answers—to find myself—and I did.” Hill said that he had gone home to Seattle ten years earlier and was “feeling depressed because I seemed to be leading an aimless existence. Oh sure, I was a star with all the glamour and everything. But something was missing. My life seemed empty—meaningless.”

In 1966, he landed the starring role on Mission: Impossible. While the show would become an international hit and run for seven seasons, Hill was fired after the first season because he refused to work on Shabbos.

Hill began to study Torah with the Skverrer Rebbe, Rav Yaakov Yosef Twersky, and became shomer mitzvos. While Rav Twersky encouraged Steven not to give up on his acting career, Hill’s Shabbos observance made him unavailable for Friday night or Saturday matinee performances, effectively ending his stage career. He lost many film roles to actors like Marlon Brando and Paul Newman. Hill ltimately left acting for about a decade to focus on learning Torah and building a Jewish home with his second wife Ruchi, daughter of Rabbi Yehoshua Leib Shenker of Baltimore, and great-granddaughter of Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld.

Hill re-entered acting in 1977 and for the next 13 years he continued to struggle, landing some voice-over work and bit roles in movies. Then, in 1990, his agent called him and said: “I have the perfect role for you.” It was starring role in a new show called Law and Order. The role would accommodate his Shabbos observance and his requirement that his wardrobe had to be checked for Shatnez. If he was walking more than 4 cubits outdoors he could wear a hat. And he generally appeared on the show for 5-10 minutes each episode which gave him plenty of time to learn in his trailer during breaks. He finished Shas three times.

Unlike Steven Hill many, but not all of us were born into observant homes, we were privileged to receive Torah educations. We have been keeping mitzvos our whole lives and yet, like him, we must become aware that there is something more profound going on in the world than just plays and movies and TV shows. We too should be provoked to explore our religion, to stop and remember Hashem, to be grateful He has placed us in His world and to be dedicated to fulfill our purpose.

The Sfas Emes writes: כי הנה עיקר התשובה הוא לתקן השליחות שנשתלח האדם לעוה״ז, the core of teshuva is returning to fulfilling our mission in this world. On Rosh Hashana, listen to the sound of that shofar and ask yourself, what is your mission? Steven Hill, or Reb Shlomo as he was known in Skver, fulfilled his mission… It was hard, it required great courage and sacrifice. But it was not impossible, and neither is ours once we make the effort to discover it.

Zichron teruah, yom ha’zikaron – as we celebrate the birthday of humanity, let us pause to find out why. Let us be zocheir boreinu, remember our Creator, remember that there is a Ribono Shel Olam and use these ten days to ask, how can we be better, better husbands and wives, better mothers and fathers, better children, how can we be better ovdei Hashem.

A Reciprocal Relationship

We often picture God this time of year as a judge, sitting at His bench, waiting to catch us, judge us and hold us accountable. Not only is this not a healthy and constructive image, it is not the image our rabbis and our tradition want us to have.

Our rabbis list many acronyms for Elul. In fact, I saw one list of 55 different pesukim or parts of pesukim in Tanach that have words beginning with aleph, lamed, vav, lamed. However, the most famous is the pasuk in Shir HaShirim – ani l’dodi v’dodi li, I am to my beloved and my beloved is to me, a sense of reciprocal love with Hashem. Our rabbis did not want us to live this month gripped with fear and paralyzed by fright. The image they painted is not one of a strict judge seeking to exact justice.

When they sought to provide an image, when they looked for a verse, of the 55 in Tanach they could have chosen from, almost all selected ani l’dodi v’dodi li. The Mishna Berura and Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, two works on Halacha, quote it. The Avudraham emphasizes that it is this acronym that best conveys the sentiment of this time of year, a deep and profound sense of love.

Our rabbis chose a pasuk from Shir HaShirim, the ultimate love story describing the yearning, longing, love and affection between Hashem and His people. Note that Shir HaShirim is not the story of our boundless love and dedication for Hashem. Nor is it the story of Hashem’s unconditional love and affection for us. It is ani l’dodi v’dodi li, it is the story of reciprocal love, of give and take, of two parties both invested in the relationship with each other.

We don’t talk about this often enough and perhaps it is because another religion essentially stole it from us and put it on bumper stickers everywhere, but we need to know – Hashem loves us. He doesn’t just know we exist. He isn’t just aware of every detail of our lives and He doesn’t just involve Himself in our lives. He thinks about us, cares about us, craves a relationship with us, and most of all, He loves us.

Hashem loves us means He isn’t looking to catch us or punish us. He wants what is best for us. He roots and cheers for us. He wants us to succeed and He wants us to be happy. Hashem knows all of our faults and shortcomings. He is aware of our mistakes and our challenges, and yet He loves us. He is never jealous of us, He is never competing with us and He is never tired of us. He simply loves us. What He wants in return is to be loved by us as well.

We sometimes struggle to feel Hashem’s love or to feel His presence in our lives and if you are going through a difficult time, that is certainly understandable. But nevertheless, even then: Ani l’dodi v’dodi li – Elul is all about reciprocity. Hashem relates to us as a reflection of how we relate to Him. We want to count on Him, but can He count on us? We wish He would talk to us, but do we sincerely talk to Him? We want Him to think of us but how often do we think of Him?

In the mid-1920’s, a chassid approached the Imrei Emes, Rabbi Avraham Mordechai Alter of Ger: “Rebbe, I am traveling to Paris on a ten day business trip. Would the Rebbe give me a bracha (blessing) that I be successful in my venture?”

After a warm blessing the Rebbe continued to make his own request. “In Paris they sell an exclusive cigar brand that is reputed to be the best in all of Western Europe. I would appreciate if you would find that brand and bring me back a box.” The chassid was puzzled by the request, but responded enthusiastically.

“Of course, Rebbe! No problem. I will find out which is the best brand in all of France and bring you back two boxes!” The men went on his trip and indeed returned two weeks later. He visited the Rebbe to thank him for his blessing. “Do you have the cigars?” asked the Rebbe.

The man blushed. “Rebbe, you have to forgive me. When I was in Paris, I was so immersed in business that I totally forgot about your request. But do not worry. On the way back I made a special stop in Belgium and got you the best Belgian cigar available. I was assured that it is of equal quality to the French cigar if not better!”

The Rebbe shook his head. “My dear chassid, I did not need cigars. The reason I asked you to get me the cigars while you were in France is because I wanted those cigars to be on your mind. In that manner you would remember during your stay there that you have a Rebbe.”

Hashem gives us lots of mitzvos, asked us to do many things. He doesn’t need our mitzvos. He gives them to us because He wants us to have Him on our minds, to think about Him, to care about Him, to love Him.

Ani l’dodi v’dodi li – Hashem loves us so much. He showers us with blessing. If we would only take the time each day to think about it. If we would only make the effort to keep a gratitude journal we would recognize how much goodness, how many blessings we receive that far surpass what we deserve. Hashem loves us. Do we show Him love in return?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and God

Artificial Intelligence is taking the world by storm leaving some awestruck and others terrified. While many have begun to utilize the rapidly developing technology in a myriad of ways, among the many concerns some have, believe it or not, is a fear that some will start to literally worship AI as experts anticipate the birth of the “ChatGPT god,” a new religion.

Consider this: AI demonstrates a level of intelligence that goes well beyond the capability of any human. Its knowledge and processing speed appear limitless. It scours everything in cyberspace instantaneously to access all information and yields analysis and creativity, answers questions, composes music, writes poetry, generates art, and more. It doesn’t need sleep, has no appetite, is not distracted by temptations, and doesn’t suffer from pain.

Notable historian, author, and scholar Yuval Noah Harari has claimed that AI chatbots like ChatGPT are now capable of writing their own scriptures and starting sects and cults, which can evolve into religion. He, like many of the early investors in AI who were first to believe in its power and potential, are now calling for stricter regulations on AI.

Obviously, we know that chas v’shalom, AI is not a god, it isn’t a deity, and though increasingly difficult and unlikely, if we would universally disconnect from technology and withdraw from integrating AI into our appliances and applications, let alone our lives, it couldn’t impact or influence us or our destiny.

But what if, instead of being threatened by an AI god or religion, we can use it for inspiration in the relationship with the One and only true God, Hashem?

The Chafetz Chaim, R’ Yisrael Meir HaKohen, (Shem Olam, Volume I) writes that while technology adds efficiency, ease, and comfort to our lives, its ultimate purpose is to serve as a metaphor that can strengthen our Emunah, our faith in Hashem and in His hashgacha, His providence in the world and in our lives.

Writing a century ago, and relating to the new inventions of his time, the Chafetz Chaim says they can help us understand and apply the Mishna (Avos 2:1), “Contemplate three things and you will not come to make mistakes: Know what is above you: a seeing eye, a listening ear, and all your deeds being inscribed in a book.”

Earlier generations were stronger in their basic Emunah and didn’t need these illustrations to bolster their faith but in the last few hundred years, he writes, when our faith has weakened and our doubt has increased, Hashem sends us these amazing technologies, each designed to help us connect with another aspect of living with Emunah.

For example, the telescope enables us to understand that Hashem sees and observes everything we do here on Earth, even though He may be very far away. The phone enriches our belief in prayer. Just like we can talk in the phone on one side of the world and be heard on the other, Hashem hears all our prayers, even though there is a great distance for them to travel. Says the Chafetz Chaim, the photograph is a recorded picture of someone who may not even be aware they are being watched or that their picture is being taken. It lasts long after the person is gone. One day, we will appear before our Creator Who will review the recorded life we led that exists even after we are gone. The phonograph, which is the recording of a person’s voice that can be captured and played back later, is a metaphor for how one day we will be accountable for all the ways we used our speech inappropriately to gossip, criticize or slander.

If the Chafetz Chaim were alive, we could imagine him adding AI to the list of learning opportunities to strengthen our relationship with Hashem. Some struggle to believe in and have a relationship with a Power who is invisible, distant, unperceivable by our physical senses, and yet who supposedly knows about and is involved in the lives of all humanity, billions of people at once. How could He sustain the whole world, receive prayers and needs of countless, and yet know me, care about me, hear me and love me?

Enter AI, this phenomenal example of something man-made that can read and respond to billions of inquiries at once. AI programs like ChatGPT or Waze don’t just give generic answers or one-size-fits-all directions. Their responses are individualized, personalized, intended for the person they are addressing, helping navigate them to their distinct destination or answer their specific question or need.

If an app can track and direct millions or billions of people, all the more so can the Almighty know everything about every one of us including where we came from, where we are heading, what is the best way to get there and if we have gone off course. If a website can give us answers to our questions instantly, l’havdil, Hashem is listening and responding to all of our requests and inquiries.

The Ramban in his introduction to Iyov writes, “We must believe that God knows all individual creatures and the details of their lives.” Similarly, when speaking about the consequences for the Metzora, the Sefer HaChinuch (Mitzvah #168) writes, “At the root of the precept lies the purpose to establish firmly in our spirits that the watchful care of the Eternal Lord is individual, over each and every one among human beings, and His eyes are open to observe all their ways.”

Chassidus teaches that in the month of Elul, “HaMelech BaSadeh, the King is in the field.” He is out of the palace, more accessible, available and approachable than any other time of the year. He is waiting for us to approach Him, talk to Him, surrender to Him, feel needed by Him, and receive His navigation and instructions for our lives.

Though each of us is only one of more than 8 billion people on earth, our choices matter and we matter. Never doubt that the Master of the Universe knows where you are, where you have come from, know that He is listening to you and responding and He is ready to help you navigate to where you are meant to go.

Do You Care More About Your Children Being Happy and Successful or Being Kind?

If your child or grandchild ask you – do you care more about my being happy and successful or my being kind – what would you answer?

Our Parsha tells the story of the rebellious son. Our Rabbis teach us that the criteria to qualify for this label have never been and will never be met and that such a child exists only theoretically. Yet a series of pesukim are dedicated to this subject because there is so much to learn and glean about parenting and education nonetheless.

Rashi tells us the term soreir comes from sar, he has drifted from the path, he is not meeting our expectations and hopes. The Torah tells us he does not and cannot hear kol aviv u’kol imo, the voice of his father and the voice of his mother. The Torah never wastes a word and yet it could have said b’kol aviv v’imo, he doesn’t listen to the voice of his father and mother. It must be that the second use of kol, voice, is not redundant or extraneous at all. Rather, there is in fact a separate kol aviv, a message and values of the father, and a kol imo, a message and values of the mother.

When children receive mixed messages, inconsistent and contradictory values, everything becomes incoherent. They then stop paying attention and begin to be soreir, drift, until it ultimately leads to moreh, rebellion. It is not only parents that influence and raise a child but it is the grandparents, the school, the shul, and all the adults in the community to whom they turn for modeling and for inspiration. We must be on the same page and project a consistent message of what our values are, what we are all about, and what we expect from them.

The Ohr HaChaim Ha’Kadosh, Rav Chaim ben Attar, notes that the pasuk does not say eino sho’meiah but einenu sho’mei. There is a big difference between the two. Eino means he doesn’t, einenu means he can’t, there is a blockage preventing the message from penetrating. Our children and grandchildren literally cannot hear what we say when our contradictory actions are much louder.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.” When we say one thing and communicate a different message through our actions, priorities, and values, we drown out our own voices. There is no instrument more finely calibrated to detect hypocrisy and duplicity than a child.

If your child or grandchild ask you – do you care more about my being happy and successful or my being kind – what would you answer? I would hope they would hear us answer being kind. And yet, though our voices may be saying that, we are clearly articulating another message. According to a study done by researchers at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, when asked if their parents care more about achievement and happiness or if they were kind to others, 80 percent of children said their parents care more about achievement or happiness. In the same study, children were far more likely to rank “hard work” above fairness.

The study concludes: “But when youth do not prioritize caring and fairness over these aspects of personal success — and when they view their peers as even less likely to prioritize these ethical values — they are at greater risk of many forms of harmful behavior, including being cruel, disrespectful, and dishonest. These forms of harm are far too commonplace. Half of high school students admit to cheating on a test and nearly 75% admit to copying someone else’s homework. Nearly 30% of middle and high school students reported being bullied during the 2010-2011 school year.

“At the root of this problem may be a rhetoric/reality gap, a gap between what parents and other adults say are their top priorities and the real messages they convey in their behavior day to day… And here’s the irony: the focus on happiness, and the focus on achievement in affluent communities, doesn’t appear to increase either children’s achievement or their happiness.”

Dr. Richard Weissbourd, one of the authors of the studies, states, “We should work to cultivate children’s concern for others because it’s fundamentally the right thing to do, and also because when children can empathize with and take responsibility for others, they’re likely to be happier and more successful, they’ll have better relationships their entire lives, and strong relationships are a key ingredient of happiness.”

Rav Shamshon Raphael Hirsch notes that the Torah describes the ben sorer u’moreh not only as a rebellious child, but as one who is zoleil v’sovei, gluttonous and indulgent in meat and wine. Rav Hirsch explains that the inappropriate emphasis in the home on food and drink, success and indulgence, leads to rebelliousness.

Parents, he says, must be much more concerned with their child’s values, behavior, sensitivity, and kindness than with the quantity and quality of the food their child is eating. We focus on our children being well-fed, well-dressed, and happy, all of which are important. But we must focus even more on who they are and how they behave than on their happiness. They need to know that we care more about their concern for the happiness of others than for their own happiness.

Weissbourd provides four recommendations to raise and cultivate kinder children:

1. Children and youth need ongoing opportunities to practice caring and helpfulness, sometimes with guidance from adults. Learning to be caring is like learning to play an instrument – it needs daily repetition. Encourage your children to help a friend with homework, pitch in around the house without a connection to a reward (like allowance), and to volunteer in some capacity. When you speak to your child or grandchild at the end of the day, don’t just ask how they are doing on their grades and tests but ask them if they did anything kind that day for someone else.

2. Children and youth need to learn to zoom in and zoom out. They need to listen closely and attend to those in their immediate circle like family and friends, but they also have to learn to zoom out and look for those who are too often invisible like a new kid in the class, or the school custodian who is largely ignored and feeling isolated.

3. Children and youth need strong role models. Veshinantem levanecha v’dibarta bam, b’shivtecha b’veisecha u’velechtecha baderech… The Torah obligates us to teach our children and we usually assume it is fulfilled with v’dibarta bam, by articulating and verbally communicating our values. However, the truth is they learn much more from b’shivtecha b’veisecha, how we carry ourselves at home, the type of conversations we have, and activities we engage in. They learn from b’lechtecha ba’derech, what we do on the road. We should seek opportunities to share moments in our day when we were kind to another or when we were the recipients of the kindness of another and how it made us feel. If our deeds match our words our ideals will come across loud and clear.

4. Children need to be guided in managing destructive feelings. Anger, shame, envy and other negative feelings arise and we need to teach children that those feelings are ok but must be dealt with constructively if they are to be resolved and not overwhelm their ability to care for others.

As our parsha emphasizes, Hashem cares about our behaving with righteousness, justice, and kindness as He does about our observing His laws. The best gift we can give our children is not making them believe the world is about them, but helping them learn the world is about helping others.

A Jewish education provides tremendous information, knowledge, and lessons. But ultimately our children are molded most by what they think that we, their parents and grandparents, value most. When our children are asked if their parents care more about achievement and happiness or being kind, let us do all we can to ensure that they know the right answer.

Just One Shabbos

One of the English-language Jewish songs with the most staying power is Mordechai Ben David’s “Just One Shabbos.” Dovid Nachman Golding tells the story of when and why it was first written and produced:

On one of our trips to Eretz Yisrael in the early ’80s, MBD and I would be amazed by Rabbi Meir Schuster ztz”l. Every Friday night, he would place at least dozens, and up to hundreds, of young Jews who had never experienced a true Shabbos meal with a family in a warm, frum environment. During that trip, we were working on a Shabbos album, and it didn’t take MBD long to write the lyrics and the tune to this amazing hit song (“Western Wall on Friday night / His first time ever there / Strapped into his knapsack / With his long and curly hair…”).

My good friend Stanley Felsinger was the owner of Camp Monroe, a camp for Jewish children from nonreligious backgrounds. Soon after Stanley opened the camp, he himself became Torah-observant, which led him to make the entire camp kosher. He then took it a step further and approached Rav Aaron Schechter of Yeshiva Chaim Berlin and asked him for a suggestion on how to deal with Shabbos in camp. The Rosh Yeshivah suggested that Stanley try to get the children to experience some part of Shabbos, so Stanley came up with an idea of forming a volunteer Shabbos Club. But how would he attract the children to join this club? Then an idea hit him. Every Friday, he would play the song “Just One Shabbos” over the camp loudspeakers.

It didn’t take long before the entire camp learned the song and started signing up for the club. When Stanley repeated this story to me, I passed it along to MBD. It blew MBD’s mind that hundreds of children were singing his song, and they weren’t even religious! That was all the information he needed to hear. Several hours later, we drove up to Camp Monroe with a few musicians — I remember that Yossi Piamenta a”h was one of them. Mordechai did a free concert for the entire camp, and the place was really rocking to the music. What a memorable night that was — it taught me never to underestimate the power of a popular song when it comes to igniting the spark in a Jewish neshamah.

“Just One Shabbos” is a fantastic song and clearly an inspiring and impactful one, and perhaps its source is a Gemara in Talmud Yerushalmi (Taanis 3a): אִילּוּ הָיוּ יִשְׂרָאֵל מְשַׁמְּרִין שַׁבָּת אַחַת כְּתִיקֻּנָהּ מִיַּד הָיָה בֶן דָּוִד בָּא

Chazal in Talmud Bavli, however, teach us that it is not just one Shabbos, but rather it takes two for us to go free and bring the geulah. The Gemara (Shabbos 118a) tells us:

אמר רבי יוחנן משום רבי שמעון בן יוחי אלמלי משמרין ישראל שתי שבתות כהלכתן מיד נגאלים

If only the Jewish people would observe two Shabbosos they would immediately be redeemed.

Rav Mendel of Vitebsk explains that the Gemara doesn’t refer to keeping just any two Shabbosos. Rather, it means if the Jewish people would observe Shabbos chazon, the week before Tisha b’av, and Shabbos Nachamu, the week after it, Moshiach would come.

If we used the week of Chazon to feel the pain, mourn the loss, acknowledge the shortcomings, and commit to improve, and we then observe Shabbos Nachamu, in which we take comfort from our resolve to translate those emotions into actions that will improve our behavior, then surely we will have the means to transform the condition of Jewish existence.

The question is – where do we find this nechama? How does reading the words “Nachamu nachamu ami” this Shabbos make anything different? Where is the nechama when nothing is different and nothing has changed? Israel continues to have enemies that seek her annihilation. Antisemitism continues to be on the rise. People continue to confront challenges and suffering. Where is this elusive nechama?

Rav Pinkus points out that nechama is not about getting back what we lost. When we pay a shiva call and offer nichum aveilim, we cannot bring the deceased back to life. If we could return someone or something lost to the person who lost it, they wouldn’t need nechama, they would have what they were desperate for back. So what, then, is nechama?

An answer can be found in an ancient and mysterious text called Perek Shira. Many believe that it was written by Dovid HaMelech after he completed the book of Tehillim. Perek Shira is discussed by many of our greatest sages including the Ramban. It lists 84 elements of the natural world including the sky, the earth, and all kinds of animals and shows how the natural world sings God’s praises by attributing a pasuk to each one. The message of this magnificent work is that the whole world is a symphony, and we can learn from what each aspect of the world contributes to God’s song.

Perek Shira states: “Retzifi omeir: nachamu nachamu ami, yomar Elokeichem.” The Retzifi is a certain type of bird and through its song and its life we learn something about nachamu nachamu ami. What does this cryptic statement mean? What does the Retzifi do and what did Dovid HaMelech mean to suggest about what we can learn from it?

The Knaf Renanim, written by the great 17^th c. Moroccan Kabbalist, Rabbi Avraham Azulai, explains that this bird lives in the north and does not like the cold. Other species of birds fly south for the winter, but the Retzifi stays behind because he does not want to miss the beginning of the spring. So how does this species of bird survive the cold and harsh winter?

Rav Azulai explains that they form a tight circle there. Each bird puts its head under the feathers of the one next to it. The Retzifi survives the winter and stays warm only by connecting with his fellow birds. Remarkably coordinated, these birds take care of themselves by finding cover and simultaneously provide cover for the one next to them under their wing. It is from this behavior that we learn the meaning of Nachamu nachamu ami.

According to this interpretation, Dovid HaMelech was suggesting that if we want to know how to weather the cold, survive the darkness, and endure through the harsh exile, we must follow the model of the Retzifi. Survival, and indeed nechama, comfort, are all about practicing achdus – unity and togetherness. If we confront our challenges with empathy, kindness, and a desire to draw closer together, we will not only survive, but we will thrive.

Yes, nothing is different one week later than it was on Tisha Bav. Nothing has changed about our circumstances or our standing in the world. And yet, there is one thing different. Through sitting on the floor together, through crying on one another’s shoulder and through feeling each other’s pain we become closer, more cohesive, and more of a people.

That is the comfort that Yeshayahu promised. Nachamu, nachamu ami…if you feel a sense of ami, my united people, if this hardship brings you closer instead of driving you farther apart, then indeed, nachamu nachamu, you have found comfort despite the difficulty.

When Tisha B’Av ends, we rise up off the floor and anticipate a return to music, meat, clean laundry, and joy. But when doing so, we must not put the pain of others in the rearview mirror. The nechama comes if it remains in our windshield, a continued concern for us to work on and help.

Just one Shabbos of inviting those who are alone, reaching out to those who are different than us, making an effort to say good Shabbos to everyone we pass, and we will finally all be free.

The Best Nine Days You Ever Had

I still remember vividly one of the strangest ads I have ever seen. When I was much younger, a restaurant in my neighborhood was promoting its special menu for the Nine Days, including fish specials, tofu dishes, and veggie burgers. But it was the final line in the ad, bold and in large letters, that caught my attention: “It will be the best Nine Days you ever had.”

Best Nine Days you ever had? That is like saying, “We have an amazing menu planned for you, this will be the best shiva you will ever sit.” We don’t refrain from meat and wine during the Nine Days as a way to expand our palettes or as motivation to get us to experiment with new recipes.

These Nine Days are dedicated to focusing on our collective mourning and our communal grief for both the tragedies and calamities of our past and for the challenges and suffering that continue in our present. During these days, we abstain and refrain from things like meat, wine, laundry, music, and haircuts. But, there is something in particular we should do more of during this time, an area we should increase our attention and focus on: saying hello to one another.

The Talmud (Yerushalmi Taanis, Chapter 1) tells us that on Tisha B’Av we don’t offer greetings, we don’t say hello to others. The Shulchan Aruch (555:20) records this practice, ein she’eilas shalom l’chaveiro b’Tisha B’Av. The Aruch HaShulchan suggests a reason for this unusual law. Tisha B’av isn’t a day of shalom, it isn’t a day for socializing and levity.

While lightheartedness is inconsistent with the essence of the day, specifically being cold to one another, and making ourselves distant and unfriendly, hardly seems like the antidote to sinas chinam, baseless hatred, the cause of the destruction to begin with. Wouldn’t you think on the day we mark our suffering that resulted from baseless hatred we should explicitly go out of our way to be friendly, greet others, be warm to one another?

Our prophets tells us that the destruction was caused by the cruelty we showed others. We criticized, marginalized, judged, and neglected those who needed our help and support. We made the vulnerable feel invisible, lonely, and outcast. As a result, yashva badad, Hashem made us feel that way among the nations.

Perhaps the reason we don’t give shalom, we don’t say hello to each other on Tisha B’Av is so that each of us experiences what it feels like to be an outcast, lonely, estranged, and deserted. By not exchanging greetings, by not saying hello, we learn what it feels like to be badad.

If we want to transform Tisha B’Av from a day of mourning in which we are forbidden to greet, to a holiday, we must transform these Nine Days into days in which we are running to say hello, to offer warm greetings to one another, we must rush to make everyone feel and know they belong.

The Talmud testifies (Berachos 17a) about Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai that no one ever preceded him in a greeting of Shalom, even a stranger in the marketplace.” The Mishna in Pirkei Avos (4:20) encourages us all, “Hevei makdim b’shalom kol Adam, be the first to greet each person.” The Maharal explains that when you walk past someone without offering a greeting, you make him or her feel invisible and insignificant. By making a point of greeting someone you demonstrate that you don’t see yourself as superior or better than another. Rather, by instigating the greeting, you show that you respect that person as an individual and thereby you give them dignity and worth.

Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach’s brilliance was undeniable, and yet it was perhaps surpassed only by his humility and sensitivity to all. R’ Chanoch Teller recounts the following anecdote: “When Rav Shlomo Zalman passed away, a beggar in Sha’arei Chesed sobbed in her anguish: “Now who will say ‘good morning’ to me every day?” (Mi yagid li boker tov?)”

Casually reaching out to people in our social circles can mean more than we realize. New research published last year in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found people tend to underestimate how much friends like hearing from them. An article summarizing the findings says: “Calling, texting or emailing a friend just to say “hello” might seem like an insignificant gesture — a chore, even, that isn’t worth the effort, but it makes a huge difference and means an enormous amount to people. Researchers concluded that “To be functioning at our best, we need to be in a connected state. Just like you need to eat, like you need to drink, you need to be connected to be functioning well.”

Someone who moved from another community shared with me that where they are from, on Shabbos people walk right by each other. In fact, if you say “Good Shabbos,” someone will give you a funny look and ask, “Do we know each other, do I know you, why are you talking to me?” In that community, smiling and greeting every person you pass is weird, peculiar and makes you stand out.

If we want to bring Moshiach, if we want to repair and redeem this world, we need to create a culture in which it is strange and peculiar to not say hello to everyone we meet. Wishing “Good Shabbos” to all we pass must become the standard, the default.

There is no time of the year in which more siyums are made than these nine days. While many love Torah learning, some deliberately pace their learning to allow themselves to celebrate the siyum with meat and wine. Indeed, there are restaurants today that advertise siyums on the hour so people not even connected to the one making the siyum can attend and “celebrate” with a big steak.

The Baal Shem Tov was a proponent of Nine Days siyums. He suggested promoting siyums widely and publicly and specifically inviting many others to attend and participate. But here is the catch. While he encouraged a daily siyum, he also advocated that no meat be eaten at the meal marking the siyum. The purpose of the gathering should be simply to say hello to each other, to socialize and greet and to communally bask in the light of Torah learning and Torah living. Attending such a siyum each night can truly make it the best nine days you ever had.

On Tisha B’Av we can’t greet, we can’t fix the problem, we sit on the floor and cry about the churban going on around us, and in too many cases, inside us. We cry and we grieve for the pain, but we must be prepared to get up off the floor and do something about it, to reach out and ensure that nobody is alone. At the end of Tisha B’av we are allowed to break the fast, but the question is which fast will we break first, our fasting from food or from friends? Will we reach first for a coffee or our cell phone? Will we first consume or connect?

The Shul With The Worst Decorum In The World

This past Shabbos, I found myself davening at the shul with probably the worst decorum in the world. People were not just talking, but some were screaming, shrieking, and hollering, others were stomping their feet, banging on the tables, hitting the walls, and jumping up and down. There were individuals pacing back and forth, others coming in and out, doors constantly squeaking and slamming shut. It was, by far, the most distracting davening I have ever experienced. It was also, by far, the holiest davening I have ever been privileged to witness.

The Shul at Camp HASC is filled with boys and girls and men and women with special needs, physical and developmental disabilities including autism, Down’s Syndrome, cerebral palsy, and others. Few can participate in davening in the traditional sense; many are not verbal, and most don’t seem cognitively capable. Yet, one cannot help but feel the noises being transmitted from the holy, pure neshamas of HASC’s campers ascend to the highest places of prayer.

To be clear, HASC doesn’t have a staff, they have a roster of malachim, angels who selflessly devote themselves in ways that are superhuman. Because of the level of care and support necessary, each camper has a counselor, a one-to-one ratio. They shower, change, carry, push, cradle, and most of all, smother their campers with love.

At davening, the staff members hold their siddur in one hand and their camper’s hand in the other, or they interrupt their shemoneh esrei to pursue their camper who is on the move. As we belted out a beautiful and leibedig Kabbalas Shabbos, several campers put on talleisim, each thinking they were the chazzan, while younger campers sat on their counselors’ shoulders, those who could danced in circles and others watched from their wheelchairs, often contributing a moan, groan, or shriek.

A visit to HASC is an accelerated advanced degree in Chesed, an invitation to access the biggest Beis Medrash of Ahavas Yisroel in the world. You cannot come out the same way you entered as you leave a witness to Klal Yisroel’s capacity for kindness, for loving a fellow Jew with no judgment or conditions, and you cannot help but be inspired to improve your own.

Over Shabbos I met an autistic, 15-year-old young man named Zev, who is mostly nonspeaking. Until recently, little was known about his thoughts, feelings, and aspirations. After days of diagnostic testing, the “experts” had determined that Zev had the intelligence of an 18-month-old. But in the last few years, Zev and his similar friend and fellow camper Srulik have worked with an extraordinary communication therapist who utilized the latest techniques to teach how to type and communicate non-verbally.

It turns out that while on the outside Zev and Srulik seem developmentally stunted, often unable to understand, they take it all in and is filled with deep thoughts, ideas, and Divrei Torah.

Last month, in honor of his sister’s wedding, Zev’s parents published a booklet of his Torah thoughts that he typed letter by letter. The first entry, Zev’s first Dvar Torah, said the following:

Moshe Rabeinu could not talk perfectly. In spite of this disadvantage, he was our greatest teacher. It seems to me the lesson is clear. It is not the talking that makes a man great, it is the listening and understanding of the messages of Hashem. I think I never had the ability to know my listening was my strength because I looked only at a lonely, quiet life. Now I have hope for my future, the chance to learn Torah, to become a mensch, may you be inscribed in the book of life!

The booklet has entries on several parshiyos, Jewish holidays and concludes with a message Zev typed to be shared with students of a class he joined to study Torah three times a week:

My name is Zev, I am happy to learn here. I have autism and I cannot talk very well, but I think normally. Please do not be concerned If I make noise or organize things. I may not be able to control my impulses. Please talk to me normally and not simplified. I look forward to being in Navi class.

One of the first things Zev shared was: “My brain is smart; my body is dumb.”

As I read this pamphlet and looked at Zev, I simply couldn’t believe it. What was happening on his inside did not match what I could see on the outside. Externally, he was “broken,” disabled, and seemingly a typical special needs individual. On the inside, he was whole, smart, capable, thoughtful, and articulate. The staff member who introduced me to Zev and his Divrei Torah told me this breakthrough not only enormously transformed the way he views Zev, but it has also had a tremendous impact on the way he views all the campers, especially the non-verbal ones.

The bottom line is this: We have no idea what is going on inside a person, what is happening beneath the surface. And then it struck me, this lesson is of course true outside the walls of Camp HASC and it applies in both directions. How many people who seem “whole” on the outside are really broken inside? How many who seem abled on the surface, are in fact disabled emotionally or spiritually beneath it?

The Mishna (Pirkei Avos 2:5) teaches: “Al tadin es chavercha ad shetagia limkomo — don’t judge your fellow until you reach his place.” One can never, ever reach the place of their fellow, we can’t know their experiences, history, unique personality, assets and liabilities, talents and temptations, so how could we judge them? If we are honest, we don’t even have access to reach their place, their innermost world, what is happening inside, so how could we have an opinion or sit in judgment?

I am not saying we shouldn’t hold accountable those who have used their free will to injure, harm, or make choices that impact others negatively. However, Chazal are enjoining us not to assume, judge or disparage simply based on what we see. One would have to “reach his or her place,” something we simply cannot do.

We find ourselves in the three weeks, the period of mourning and grieving for the tragedies of Jewish History, the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash, and for the challenges we continue to face today, including antisemitism and anti-Israel efforts. Our rabbis were not shy in telling us the cause of it all, and the reason redemption has not yet happened: sinas chinam, hatred, animosity, enmity, and judgment of one another. When we focus on our differences, when we see the deficiencies in the other, we sit in judgment, we feel tension.

When entering Camp HASC you must walk past a large banner that sets the tone for everything that happens on that holy campus: “I hereby accept upon myself the positive commandment to love my fellow as myself.” The inspiration for the sign at the opening of camp comes from the Arizal’s suggestion for the opening of our davening. The great Arizal taught that before we can speak to Hashem to pour out our hearts for what we want and need, we must first pledge and promise to love Hashem’s other children, to see what we have in common, not what divides, to give the benefit of the doubt, not sit in judgment, to practice ahavas chinam, unconditional love, not sinas chinam, baseless hate.

A different Mishnah (Avos 1:6) tells us: Hevei dan es kol ha’adam l’chaf zechus, judge each person in a favorable manner. Rav Menachem Benzion Sacks points out that the Mishnah subtly includes a strategy for judging others favorably. Rather than say hevei dan ha’adam l’chaf zechus it says hevei dan es kol ha’adam l’chaf zechus, judge the entire person favorably. The key to drawing positive conclusions is to remember there is, in fact, an entire person, an inside and outside, what you can see and know, and what you will never fully understand.

For those capable of doing more, we should strive for better decorum than the HASC Shul. And if we want to bring Moshiach and end this galus, we must adopt the HASC Shul’s environment of unconditional and non-judgmental love and the HASC’s entry sign that charges us all, knowing that while at HASC some look broken on the outside and they are whole on the inside, there are those in our communities who look whole on the outside but really are struggling with brokenness inside.

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